WHAT COMES AFTER RELIGION
The debate between believers and atheists usually goes nowhere. The real issue is: what should fill the gaps created by the end of widespread belief? What should fill the God-shaped hole?
Script by Alain de Botton
Animation designed and directed by Jonathan Hodgson hodgsonfilms.tumblr.com
Sound design by Honza Topinka
Produced in collaboration with philosopher Alain de Botton for The School of Life theschooloflife.com
Link to movie on School of Life YouTube Channel youtube.com/watch?v=CL–1Z_g4DE
THE MAN WITH THE BEAUTIFUL EYES
A gang of kids find a strange house with an overgrown garden where they play. Only once do they meet the man who lives there, a dead-beat alcoholic with a free and easy spirit who welcomes them. The children see him as a romantic character in stark contrast to their neurotically house proud parents.
A collaboration between Animator Jonathan Hodgson and Illustrator Jonny Hannah.
KEY CREDITS:
Director: Jonathan Hodgson
Producer: Jonathan Bairstow
Designer: Jonny Hannah
Poem: Charles Bukowski
Sound: Jonathan Hodgson
Voices: Peter Blegvad, Louis Schendler
Production Company: Sherbet
GUANTANAMO BAY: THE HUNGER STRIKES
In March 2013, reports of a hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay, the US detention camp in Cuba, began to surface. Details were sketchy and were contradicted by statements from the US military. Now, using testimony from five detainees, this animated film reveals the daily brutality of life inside Guantánamo. Today there are 17 prisoners still on hunger strike, 16 of whom are being force-fed. Two are in hospital
Commisioned by The Observer
Creators: Mustafa Khalili, Guy Grandjean
Director: Jonathan Hodgson
Producer: Jonathan Bairstow
Animation Director: Tom Senior
Technical Director: Ben Sayer
Animation Assistants: Rebecca Balint, Harriet Titlow, Stuart Beer, Hakim Ismail
Production Company: Sherbet
Sound Design: Fonic
THE BANANA MASSACRE
This is an excerpt from the movie Banana Land: Blood, Bullets and Poison. This animation explains that the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) and the U.S. State Department supported the mass killing of innocent people trying to organize for better working conditions. The massacre occurred in Ciénaga, Colombia on December 6, 1928.
See more about the movie at bananalandmovie.org!
MOSTAFAEI: END THE DEATH PENALTY
One Iranian lawyer’s fight to save juveniles from execution – the extraordinary story of Mohammad Mostafaei who has saved 20 of the 40 juveniles he has defended from execution in Iran. Spearheading Amnesty International’s 2012 End the Death Penalty campaign.
Year of production 2012
Animation Director: Jonathan Hodgson
Production Company: Sherbet for Guardian Films
Commissioned by Amnesty International
WONDERLAND: THE TROUBLE WITH LOVE AND SEX
The first full-length animated documentary made for British television takes us inside the counselling rooms of Relate, as clients wrestle with champagne soaked fantasies and impotence, with dark family secrets and shocking confessions of infidelity. Can Relate counselling help any of them?
Producer/Director: Zac Beattie
Animation Director: Jonathan Hodgson
Animation Producer: Jonathan Bairstow
Executive Producer: Nick Mirsky
Production Company: Sherbet
Year of Production: 2010
First Broadcast: BBC2 10th May 2011
FOREST MURMURS
An animated exploration of Epping Forest’s sinister past sparks off a journey into the dark side of the film maker’s mind.
Original Format: HDD5 Digibeta
Year of Production 2006
Duration 12mins 32secs
KEY CREDITS:
Director: Jonathan Hodgson
Produced by Jonathan Hodgson, Rachel Matchett
Voices: Simon Beesley, David Benson, Simon Downham-Knight, Leigh Hodgkinson, Frank Hodgson, Jonathan Hodgson, Naomi Seekings, Sue Terry
Music: Stuart Hilton
Sound Design and Mix: Fonic Ltd
Animation Assistants: Lucy Rolfe, Elena Topouzoglou
Additional Compositing: Peter Richardson
Script Advisor: Robert Jones
Editing Advisor: Dan Saul
Music Coordinator: Bunny Schendler
Film London Producer: Pinky Ghundale
Film London Production Executive: Maggie Ellis
Funded by Arts Council England, London with the support of Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network
CAMOUFLAGE
Original Format 35mm, Digibeta
Year of production: 2001
Duration: 8mins 12secs
Camouflage explores the experience of children growing up with schizophrenic parents. Based on extensive research and personal testimony it compares a personal account with the experience of others, using interviews, drawings and animation, live action and digital composition.
KEY CREDITS:
Director: Jonathan Hodgson
Producers: Jonathan Bairstow, Clare Spencer
Sound Design: Jonathan Hodgson
Production Company: Sherbet
FEELING MY WAY
Original format: 35mm, Digibeta
Year of production: 1997
Duration: 5mins 34secs
A journey from home to work as seen through the filter of the conscious and subconscious mind. Through the use of moving collages and painterly animation combined with live-action footage, the viewer is able to share the traveller’s experiences and his mental reactions to the trials and triviality of urban existence.
Comissioned by Arts Council England/Channel 4 Animate Projects
KEY CREDITS:
Director: Jonathan Hodgson
Technical Assistant: Timo Arnall
Production Advisor: Dick Arnall
Production Company: Hodgson Films
NIGHTCLUB
Original format: 16mm
Year of production: 1983
Duration: 6mins 2secs
Made while studying Film and TV dept at the RCA. Based on sketches made in Liverpool drinking clubs. The film observes human behaviour in a social situation, hinting at the loneliness felt by the individual lost in the crowd.
KEY CREDITS:
Director: Jonathan Hodgson
Production Company: Royal College of Art
DOGS
A man takes his dog for a walk in the park where they encounter other dogs and their owners. The film explores the relationship between a man and his dog highlighting their contrasting approaches to life.
Original Format: 16mm
Year of production: 1981
Duration: 6mins 39secs
PHOTOBOOTH DIARY
Made while studying Animation on the BA Graphic Design course at Liverpool Polytechnic between 1979 and 1981. I went to Woolworths every week for two years and paid 30p for a strip of four photobooth portraits. Just before my degree show I photographed them using a 16mm rostrum camera and created this short animated self portrait. I did the music myself with a violin bowed and hit with an eraser on a stick.